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Join one of the most adventurous biologists of our day for a look at how a revised vision of biology can help create a template for a new society. Dr. Lipton explores topics such as how our consciousness shapes our biology, the power of fractals, and how human civilization is passing through stages that mirror aquatic, reptilian, and mammalian development.

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This high-octane teleseminar surveys a broad scope of history and human evolution as Dr. Lipton illuminates the parallels between reptilian, avian, and mammalian evolution and the epochal transitions humanity as a whole is now traversing. He shows how corporations and large governments parallel the increase in size of dinosaurs without an increase in brain size or awareness.

Loren Carpenter revolutionized the entire film industry through inventing rendering and modeling algorithms for image synthesis and visual effects. In 2001 he and two colleagues were awarded the only Oscar statuettes ever given for computer science. He recently transitioned from his position as Senior Research Scientist in Disney/Pixar’s research division to that of an IONS visiting scholar.

His groundbreaking work began at the Boeing Company where, while pursuing his master’s degree in computer science at the University of Washington, he started experimenting with computer animation as part of an effort to improve the company’s computer-aided design and modeling tools. That work inspired and led to his creation of the world’s first fractally-generated animation piece, a short film titled Vol Libre, which is available on Vimeo.

In 1980 he presented the two-minute film at the SIGGRAPH Conference, and his film career took off when the Lucasfilm Computer Division immediately offered him a job. There he further perfected his software to create the fractal planet for the Genesis sequence of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a visual effect that worked so well it was used in the next three Star Trek movies. His division at Lucasfilm eventually grew into Pixar Animation Studios, where he became the studio’s first Senior Scientist, and where his software algorithms still beat in the heart of every Pixar movie.

In addition to his award-winning work in computer animation, Loren and his wife Rachel have explored new concepts in interactivity and computer art through their own company, Cinematrix, Inc.

The value of chaos and disorder in human life and the paradoxical unity of opposites have been repeatedly affirmed by an impressive array of individuals from various walks of life – scientists, mathematicians, physicians, nurses, psychologists, philosophers, poets, writers, musicians, artists, theologians, saints, and sinners. They tell us that chaos and disorder are as essential as harmony and coherence in a fulfilled life, and in emerging science as well.

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The upheavals that we presently see in our civilization represent a giant force of evolution that’s in motion. When we focus on any one of the current crises alone, we run the unfortunate risk of missing the forest for the individual trees, failing to recognize that all these crises collectively represent the evolution of community, not of the individual. What we’re evolving now is a super organism called humanity and a reality in which all of us know ourselves to be cells in the body of one living organism, the planet.